


You Don't Have to Be Afraid

by GooseWhiskers



Series: Hey Look, Blue Soup! [9]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Companionable Snark, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Feelings, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, I Love You, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, These two are my favorite, i just wanted to write something nice for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseWhiskers/pseuds/GooseWhiskers
Summary: Piper wakes up alone on a stormy night and is faced with a stark reminder that for Blue, the past never stays where it belongs. Her lover's inner demons have haunted his steps from the beginning, but she's there to offer him a shoulder when the weight is too much to carry.





	You Don't Have to Be Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime post-game, after Rocket's Red Glare and Nuclear Option!

Piper stirred from her slumber to the sound of rain pattering off-key against the metal roof. Barely awake, she reached instinctively for Nate’s warmth to press into. Only to find the other half of the bed deserted. Cold.

“Blue?” She cast out groggily. Bleary-eyed, she searched the darkness of the room for his silhouette.

He didn’t answer. Wind rattled the frame of his home, hissing against the walls.

Motivated by a thin ripple of anxiety, Piper abandoned the comfort of the bed and fumbled for the lantern Nate always kept beside it.

The lantern was gone, too.

Something wasn’t right. She rubbed at her eyes with a frustrated huff and did her best to traverse the house in pitch-black with poise. Her best failed to prevent her from tripping on the stairs. Solid ground evaporated. Vertigo surged from her toes to her fingertips and any remaining restfulness dissolved entirely in a split second of sheer unadulterated panic. With a loud expletive she flailed and staggered back, catching herself a moment before disaster.

Piper clutched at the wall for stability and hissed through her teeth. “ _Blue!”_ She called out again, rather less gently than before. “Are you still here?”

Only silence rang back. After a moment of consideration, Piper continued up — slower this time. She hesitated beneath the ladder to the roof, casting another cursory glance around before grimacing and reaching for the rungs.

Chill air cut through her as she clambered up from the hatch to solid footing. The makeshift porch had a fabric cover to keep out rain, but the cotton was long past saturation point and dripping pitifully. Piper wished she’d had the sense to grab her coat before coming out.

A dim amber glow from the patio table gave her just enough light to make out Nate, sitting in a dark corner. He hovered out of sight from Diamond City’s perpetual fluorescence.

“Hey dollface. There you are.” She greeted with a gentle smile, ignoring the goosebumps scattering across her arms. What a handsome silhouette he cut. But tonight he looked very much like the grim stone statues scattered across Boston’s ruin. Impassive. Unfeeling.

He didn’t seem to hear her. A wave of sorrowful apprehension doused Piper’s excitement over having successfully tracked down her lover.

His bad nights weren’t so frequent anymore. Only rarely did Nate wake in an icy sweat, disoriented and delirious with raw panic. They still happened. She could see it on his face, tonight the demons of his doubts were giving a merry chase to Blue’s peace of mind.

“What are you doin’ up here?” She pressed, feigning ignorance as she approached.

“Stargazing.” Flat. Automatic.          

Piper cocked a brow, dropping into his lap with casual ease and leaning against the crook of his neck. Tattered fabric obscured most of the sky from view. Where it  _was_  visible, black storm clouds swirled low with entropic grace, bottoms reflecting the city lights dimly. “Oh yeah, of course. On a night like this - who could blame you.”

Nate quirked his lip, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I didn’t want to bother you.” He admitted quietly. As if apologizing.

Her spine tingled, but Piper winced. His hands shook against her, and not from the cold. “ _Blue_ ,” she scoffed lightly, running her fingers over his forearm.

Nate nosed her ear with comforting familiarity, but there was a twinge of desperation to it. Like he was scrambling for a foothold and fearful of falling.

“It  _bothers_  me that you’re still trying to deal with this alone.” Piper lifted his trembling hand to kiss it softly. “You know you can talk to me.”

He didn’t reply at first. For a long moment they only sat in silence and watched streams of acid rain roll down the gutter. His muteness frustrated her, mostly because it made her nervous. But she knew by now that it wasn’t the quiet of being ignored or dismissed. Not from him. Nights like these, Nate needed time to think, because words didn’t come easy.

So, she talked for them instead. About everything. Piper reminisced over their latest adventure, their oldest memories. Dogmeat’s puplike antics and how grown-up Nat was getting. Dreams she had for the life they were building. Hopes for their future. Small moments of light that promised better days to come. And her bright voice slowly wove between the ribbons of black doubt where Nate’s monsters hid.

As she talked, she pet Blue’s arm. He didn’t shy from the touch; tension corded in his muscles showing what a monumental effort holding his ground required. Her calloused fingers curled between his own. In all their time together, this was the only way she knew to comfort him during the bad nights. Probably she should be grateful he allowed himself even this much vulnerability.

Finally Nate squeezed her hand and murmured weakly, “I love you.”

“ _No,_ really?” She teased, squeezing back.

He smiled wide and mournful. Only for a moment. Then the shadows crawled back over his tired features. “Before the War, we didn’t… talk about these things.”

 _Before the War._  His euphemism for Nora. Piper held an image in her mind of Blue, cast in whitewashed moonlight, sitting alone in bleak hopelessness until dawn while his wife slept on in blissful ignorance. The truth and the lies eating each other up, tearing him apart inside. The way he might’ve remained tonight if Piper hadn’t found him. It felt wrong. It was hard not to blame Nora.

“She tried, at first,” Nate continued in a meek voice, as if sensing Piper’s thoughts. “But Anchorage, it — wasn’t something she could understand. I was alright, I, had her and-” His mouth twisted into a stiff rictus as his conversation changed course abruptly. “It still seems unfair to ask you, too. Anchorage is a radroach compared t- everything that’s—” He inhaled staggeredly, scar-tissue heartache purling through his muscles and stealing his voice.

“Hey.” Piper soothed, turning so that she could look him in the eyes. Blue’s features twisted with old pain. It hurt to witness, but she held his gaze. She wasn’t afraid of it. Not of any part of him. “I can make my mind up for myself. I’m here,” as if that should be the end-all of Nate’s reservations.

He smiled that sad smile again.

“I don’t deserve the way you look at me.” Nate confessed of himself. Or maybe condemned. “Not one bit. Sometimes I think - if you knew,  _really knew_  how frightened I am, all the time—” He tried to laugh but only managed a faint hiss.  “I’m not brave the way you are.” Nate traced the veins along Piper’s wrist with a slow finger.

She could practically see the noose tangling in his conscience.

“Every step I take I’m second guessing, looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even when I think it’s behind me, those same nightmares just keep coming  _back._ ” Nate pressed a hand against his brow, propping it up stiffly as he gritted his teeth. Black guilt dripped off him in waves. “They’re all  _tangled together_  in a big bloody mess in my head.”

“A good — If I was a good man… I shouldn’t  _feel_  like this, should I?” Again with his wanton dispersal of self-loathing; white noise overwhelming his brain. “You know what I’ve done to survive. There are sins I have to pay for. It’s not right for you to have to suffer over my mistakes any more than you already have. I don’t think I could bear it if- if you knew how I -”

She kissed him. Mostly to force him to stop talking.

Nate flinched.

“Blue,” Piper pressed her forehead to his with gentle, firm insistence when he made to retreat, “cut the static.”

Her heart throbbed. Countless injustices they’d faced, and the most nefarious one was right here. Always blaming himself. Always trying to carry the weight of the world. Then ashamed when he couldn’t. Waltzing around like Grognak in the flesh, pretending to be indestructible, forgetting he was human. Hell, he wore it so well - sometimes she forgot, too.

Nate exhaled raggedly. She brushed his disheveled hair back into place, “God, you almost sound like you  _believe_  that tripe. C’mon, dollface.”

Grimacing, he refused to look her in the eye. Still that voice in his head pulled him back, looking for reasons to keep clinging to guilt.

Pressing a gentle hand against his cheek, Piper brushed her thumb from the edge of Nate’s lips to his unblemished jawline. He’d talked himself into a vicious knot. “Will you trust me, a little? I dunno if you noticed, but I’ve kinda made it my business to out the bad guys. I think I know what I’m looking at.” She smirked playfully, “And I  _love_  you. Not just one part. Not just your good days.  _You._ ”

He kissed her thumb, shutting his eyes tight. She loved the feel of his lips. Soft. Untainted by the ravaging wasteland. They lingered on the curl of her fingers. He always kissed gently, no matter what sort of turmoil surrounded them. Nate’s brow furrowed as the storm billowing inside surged violently. When his tears started falling and he trembled in earnest, Piper only pulled closer.

She ached for him. “Hey, it’s gonna be alright.” She promised, as though there could be no other alternative. “Just talk to me. Or hold me. Or whatever you need, but don’t go it alone.”

It was a long time before either of them spoke again after that. He clutched her like a lifeline, burying himself in the crook of her neck as the episode took its toll. She kissed him as he shuddered - on his forehead, his temple, his lips, his chin, all over. Not to incite anything, just to affirm her closeness and show him he wasn’t alone. Stoking, she hoped, his will to fight against his demons. They were powerful opponents and they didn’t want to give him up.

She wished she could read his thoughts. Then maybe it would be easier to know what to say. She just had to believe that, in time, Nate would learn to trust himself as much as he trusted her. As much as  _she_  trusted  _him_.

Even if he didn’t, and the day never came where his nightmares faded into distant memory - she would stay by his side. As long as she could. As long as he would let her. “The two of us? We don’t stay down. I’ve got your back.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think Piper would have a hard time responding to Nate's PTSD at first, and early on in their relationship it would lead to some major misunderstandings. But given time and effort on both their parts, he could learn to be vulnerable around her. I really wanted to explore that! Hope you guys enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing! <3


End file.
